The ubiquity of mass media has made it practically impossible for any aspect of culture to be kept secret from the popular consciousness. Prepare yourself, then for Sacred Steel, a combination of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Allman Brothers Band, Al Green, Andrauch and Sly & the Family Stone that has indeed been music's best-kept secret, holed up in the Pentecostal Church of God-an institution that's been loath to let it out to the rest of the world. Thank, well, God, then, for Robert Randolph, a kind of Jimi Hendrix of the genre who came screaming out of New Jersey first via the John Medeski/North Mississippi Allstars set The Word and then with last year's righteous concert album Live at the Wetlands.

Unclassified, Randolph and his Family Band's studio debut, is a different affair entirely, however. Co-produced by Jim Scott (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Red Hot Chili Peppers), the 11-song set leaves the Family Band's jam band pyrotechnics back on Wetlands and goes instead for a focused and tightly crafted set of songs that showcases texture and mood as much as chops-amidst the spiritual soft-sell of Randolph's lyrics. Vibrant shuffles like "Going in the Right Direction" and "Run for Your Life" are spirit-raising, hand-clapping testimonials, while the instrumental "Calypso" channels a rolling, Santana-ish Latin flavor into the mix. "Good Times (3 Stroke)," "Nobody" and "I Need More Love" offer some pretty serious funk, but Randolph-whose pedal steel acumen highlights or accents every song-and Family show a more gentle facility on the islandy "So Refreshing," "Smile" and "Problems." Irrespective of your own religion, Unclassified is a surefire way to instill some faith into anyone who thinks music has grown moribund.